Bringing fibre to the home

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 27 Mar 2009

Fibre to the home will become a standard feature for housing developments in the next five years, says Atec Systems and Technologies chief commercial officer Gerhard Loots.

“In KwaZulu-Natal, the Home Owners Association is already holding meetings to draft white papers that will ensure fibre to the home becomes a standard for housing developments,” adds Loots.

He explains the company does not own the last mile connections to the residential estates. The residential telecoms provider manages the services over the network, while the Home Owners Association owns the last mile. Loots believes this business model will become the standard modus operandi for other residential telecoms providers.

“The benefits of doing business like this mean the national operators, Neotel and Telkom, don't have to pay for the last mile connection, which is really expensive. And for the residences, it ensures they can change service providers if we do not perform well in managing their services.”

Making the connection

Atec has appointed Neotel to implement digital transmission technology over fibre on one of its projects in KwaZulu-Natal. The deal will see one of Atec's clients receive fibre to the home at a rate of R16 000 per housing unit, explains Loots.

“The houses at Kindlewood Estate, in Mount Edgecomb, will each receive 30 megs of bandwidth, which will be provided by Neotel through a one megabit passive fibre network to 32 Atec switching kiosks on the estate. Atec will connect residences to the kiosk via copper,” says Loots.

Atec is also in the process of providing Internet connectivity to several other residential estates in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, including two estates with 600 and 200 units each, in Pretoria.

Neotel's residential plans

Last year, Neotel outlined plans to start laying fibre-optic cables in residential areas by November. Neotel senior OSP manager Imran Abbas said the company was speaking to specific communities, a move which forms part of its mid-term plans.

The network operator has been laying cables in the metropolitans of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Tshwane. Analysts believe Neotel will focus on providing connectivity to the main metropolitans in which it is laying fibre.

BMI-TechKnowledge research director Brian Neilson says management structures in residential communities such as Parkmore and Sandton have already started investigating options to run their own services. “This would include the option of IPTV services from a third-party pay-TV player, along with closed circuit TV for security cameras.”